Review feature by Ann Jungman
[Armadillo 5.4 Winter 2003]
A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird Macmillan Hardback £9.99 ISBN 0-330-43679-1
A Little Piece of Ground is a very good, book, conveying with great authenticity the frustrations, the claustrophobia and humiliations, which are a part of daily life in Occupied Palestine.
The book tells the story of Karim, a twelve year Muslim Palestinian, who wants to be much like twelve years old boys everywhere else: tall and handsome, a brilliant football player and a world famous pop singer. Of course he is even less likely than most twelve year old boys to achieve those ambitions because of the ghastly conflict being acted out daily on the streets. It starts with the end of a long period of curfew; just as Karim's family get ready to explode, the curfew is lifted, shopping can be done, friends can meet, essential medicines can be bought and a football can be kicked.
Karim, exhilarated by being outside again, moves further from home than usual and makes a marvellous discovery Ë an empty piece of ground where he can play football and a new friend, Hopper from the huge refugee camp nearby. A Little Piece of Ground is the story of these two boys and their families and the resistance that they put up to the Israeli Army .
The story is told entirely from the viewpoint of a twelve year old boy and as such it works brilliantly. We really feel with Karim and when the little piece of ground is finally taken over by Israeli tanks and the boys are deprived of yet another freedom, the resistance just goes on. The only hope seems to be the nobility and courage of continued opposition; no possibility of peace is ever posited.
A whole world is built up in the this book, home and school, love and fear, town and country, refugees and locals, heat and sun and hopelessness. As a picture of a small country under siege it could not be bettered. Yes, as I read it I felt frustrated because I never picked up even a hint that the Israeli soldiers were human. One young soldier looked scared and another fed a cat but at no point is there any sense that the conflict is a shared tragedy.
The Occupation was a terrible mistake and should end immediately but it has been a catastrophe for Israelis as well, eating into the moral, social and economic fabric of their society. Occupations always end up corrupting the occupier, as the Americans are discovering in Iraq. It can't be done humanely and well and the situation should be avoided whenever possible. But I never picked up from A Little Piece of Ground a flicker of such useful thoughts. Only rage and hate of a kind that is entirely understandable is represented and that seems to me to present a very hopeless and despairing scenario for the future. When I visited Palestine, Palestinians often said that the Occupation was destroying two countries; it is a good viewpoint and likely to push those who hold it towards a peace.
Also, I found the Palestinian world portrayed here a very Manichean place. In the country on these pages there is no corrupt Palestinian Authority, no collaborators, no criminals and most oddly no fundamentalists, not even a mention of Hamas - just a group of victimised people, all of whom are virtuous. Of course this is not true. In every place at every time there is a big mix of people, some good, some bad, most a mixture of both.
But in this book just as all the Palestinians are good, all the Israelis come across as inhuman robots. Yet, over a thousand young Israelis prefer to go to jail, rather than serve in the Occupied Territories, 100,000 Israelis attend Peace Rallies and some go regularly to Palestine to help with olive harvests, to stop wells being filled in, to try to prevent house demolitions and teachers, doctors and human rights activists from both sides consistently work together to my certain knowledge. The Israeli Peace Movement is not just the best hope for the region, it is the only hope, the only alternative to the destruction and exile of one of the protagonists.
Now, a novel does not have to give a lesson in history or politics or present both sides of every conflict, but there is a convention in war novels and most particularly those for children that establishes in the course of the story the fundamental humanity of both sides. This seems to me an excellent tradition, not only because it gives a gleam of hope in a naughty world , but mainly because it is always, always, true.. Had A Little Piece of Ground managed to incorporate even a hint of the above, I think it would have turned a very good book into a brilliant one. .
(Ann Jungman is a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and works to build bridges and pull down walls between Israelis and Palestinians).